View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library Argumentation (2006) 20:253–272 Ó Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10503-006-9010-2 The Ancient Argumentative Game: so´ poı and loci in Action SARA RUBINELLI Health Care Communication Laboratory, School of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano Via Buffi 13, Lugano, 6900, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: In classical logic and rhetoric the strategies of argumentation known as topoi played a crucial role. Yet, topoi refer there to different kinds of strategies that this study intends to explain synoptically. Main focus will be on passages from Aristotle and Cicero. Indeed, these sources contain examples and theoretical considerations, which provide the basis for a general investigation of the complex phenomenon of topoi in the ancient world. Four main types of topoi will be juxtaposed and discusses comparatively as a way to inspire historical reconstructions of the system of topoi, as well as modern theory formation on argumentation where topoi still receive much attention. KEY WORDS: Aristotle, Cicero, ancient theory of argumentation, strategies of argumentation, typology of topoi/loci 1. INTRODUCTION This study focuses on the nature and functioning of the much-discussed argumentative devices known as topoi (sing. topos, from the Greek in Latin loci, sing. locus), respectively in Greek and Latin rhetoric.1 The reasons at the origin of this focus are several. Scholars of ancient rhetoric and theory of communication recognise that the term topos was generically used in the classical tradition to indicate several kinds of topoi. Yet, so far no work has sufficiently explained these kinds comparatively so as to fully grasp their essence.2 The tendency is to focus on a single strand in the tradition of topoi, discouraging synoptic analysis of the term.3 This lack in the explanation very often clouds the understanding of the passages where topos occurs in the ancient texts.4 Moreover, it seems to prevent a comprehensive exploita- tion of the subject, and a full understanding of those characteristics of the method of topoi that could inspire both historical reconstructions of the doctrine and its adaptation to modern theories of argumentation where the concept is still highly relevant.5 The ancient topical methodology has a multifaceted nature. It plays around a delicate 254 SARA RUBINELLI combination of logical and extra logical elements, which this study intends to underline in its fundamental characteristics. The present analysis will be based mainly on the texts of Aristotle and Cicero. These sources contain examples and theoretical considerations, which provide the basis for a general investigation of the complex phenome- non of topoi in the ancient world. In what follows, each meaning of topos will be explained through a selection of significant examples. As a way to unify the different meanings underlined, the article ends with a note on the etymology of the word topos. 2. TOPOS AS ‘SUBJECT-MATTER INDICATOR’ Leaving aside the occurrences where topos appears in handbooks of rhetoric with the meaning of ‘area’ or ‘position’,6 the term is used for guiding speakers’ thoughts in selecting material for their arguments. In particular, the term topos is used with reference to a subject-matter that orators might take into consideration for pleading their cases. Topos with this meaning already appears in Isocrates. Thus in Philip 109, the author claims that the ‘good qualities of the soul’ of Heracles (the Greek ) are an unworked topos that would be appropriate for praising the hero: .7 «Coming now to Heracles, all others who praise him harp endlessly on his valour or recount his labours; and not one, either of the poets or of the historians, will be found to have commemorated his other excellences – I mean those which pertain to the spirit. I, on the other hand, see here a subject matter peculiar to him and entirely unworked ...»8 In the Latin context, in Cicero’s De inventione, topos as subject-mat- ter indicator is used mainly with reference to the adtributa (I, 34–44). The adtributa are explicitly said to be loci at the end of their descrip- tion at I, 44. They represent a catalogue of topics and, in particular, of ‘attributes’ either of the person involved in the case, or of the fact under discussion, which can inspire orators in structuring their argumentative interventions. The adtributa advise orators on possible topics to be considered when designing arguments. The adtributa of THE ANCIENT ARGUMENTATIVE GAME 255 the person include, for example, his/her name, nature, manners of life and education, while those of the fact embrace, for example, the place where the act was performed, the time, its consequence, definition and similar or contrary acts.9 In book two of De inventione Cicero discusses in detail what adtrib- uta orators have to examine according to the nature of the case they need to plead. Thus, for instance, whenever the case in question involves a conjectural issue – when the dispute is about the actual performance of a certain fact by the person accused –10 orators are advised to explore the attribute ‘cause’ (causa) that is the reason why a person would have committed a certain crime. As Cicero notes, this topic is what one might call the foundation or basis of this issue. For no one can be convinced that a deed has been done unless some reason is given why it was done.11 Thus, the author continues: Ergo accusator, cum impulsione aliquid factum esse dicet, illum impetum et quan- dam commotionem animi affectionemque verbis et sententiis amplificare debebit et ostendere quanta vis sit amoris, quanta animi perturbatio ex iracundia fiat aut ex aliqua causa earum, qua impulsum aliquem id fecisse dicet. (De inventione II, 19–20) «Therefore the prosecutor when he says that something was done on impulse, will be under necessity of dilating upon that passion and, as it were, agitation and state of mind, with the full powers of his thought and expression, and of showing how great is the force of love, what powerful mental agitation arises from anger or from any of the causes by which he claims that the defendant was urged to commit this crime.»12 Again topos in the above sense is used by Aristotle to indicate the rhetorical eide (the Greek ) discussed in Rhetoric A4– 14. As I have shown elsewhere, the eide are propositions describing contents or subject matters that orators must have in readiness in order to construct their arguments.13 They relate to what Aristotle considers as the three main genera of rhetorical speeches, namely deliberative, judicial and epideictic rhetoric; therefore illustrating topics linked to the ends of these genera, such as the good, the just, the honorable and their contraries. Thus a speaker who wants to show that a certain person or a certain thing is good can find con- tents in support of his case by exploring the eide that explain what the concept of ‘being good’ implies, in connection to the case at issue.14 3. TOPOS AS ‘SCHEME OF ARGUMENT’ Another sense of topos in ancient rhetoric is that of ‘scheme of argu- ment’. More specifically, a topos indicates a procedure for establishing 256 SARA RUBINELLI or refuting propositions on which standpoints are adopted. In this per- spective, a topos is essentially composed of a law, or general principle, with a probative function, and an instruction working as a searching formula.15 Often, a topos has also an introductory label, mainly in the ‘from’ form (as in the topos ‘from opposites’, the Greek ),16 that highlights the focal concept at the basis of the argumentation scheme it proposes.17 Aristotle does not always state both the law and the instruction, but they are both implied by each topos.18 The law, in the more or less explicit form of an if-then proposition, bases or justifies the inferential process. Thus, for exam- ple, one of the laws concerning ‘opposites’ states that «if the contrary does not follow the contrary either directly or in reverse order, it is clear that neither does one of the terms in the statement follow the other».19 The law is applied through the instruction that, mainly in the form of a deontic sentence, gives indications on how to tackle the proposition under investigation in order to find appropriate premises. Thus, the instruction for applying the just mentioned law runs: «You must look with regard to contraries whether contrary follows upon contrary, either directly or in reverse order».20 What must be stressed is that these topoi focus on the process of inference, and not simply on possible subject-matters of the argument. They enable speakers to find propositions that hold a relation with a certain standpoint in terms of premises/conclusion. By means of the instruction speakers construct propositions that, if they are implied by the intended conclusion, work as premises for its establishment; if they are in contradiction, they lead to its refutation.21 As it is acknowl- edged by an influent part of the literature, a topos functions as an external inference principle that, in the outcome, lead to arguments of modus ponens/modus tollens form.22 According to the nature of the laws found in these topoi, there are at least three ways in which a topos is an argumentation scheme. There are instances where a topos is a scheme based either (3.1) on the nature of the logical predicates contained in the propositions to estab- lish or refute, or (3.2) on comparison between logical predicates, terms belonging to the same onotological series (the coordinates and inflected forms of the words), facts or phenomena mainly in terms of more/less, similar/different, cause/effect.